Mask
by chuunin alchemist
Summary: Naruto's innermost thoughts, behind the mask of his smile


I don't own Naruto. . . . .wish I did though

Wrote this fic after reading some really sad ones. Don't ask. And it's NOT about Kakashi!

**Mask**

_A mask. Its purpose: to conceal, to hide, to cover what is under it. To prevent anyone from discovering what is hidden behind it._

Every day, the same thing.

I wake up, do my morning business, go to training with Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei. There's the D-class and C-class missions we do in between training sessions. Training with Jiraiya. Lunch, and sometimes dinner at Ichiraku. Hanging out with the other rookie nin. Talking about my day with Iruka-sensei.

I have reasons enough to be lonely. One look at my past is more than enough to see why.

The smile I put on at the start of each new day, before I walk out of my front door. The determined look in my eye that Iruka-sensei comments about. My everyday attitude, my noise, my actions. A mask. A different one from the one Kakashi-sensei and the Anbu wear, but a mask nonetheless.

A mask that hides.

No, it doesn't hide the Kyuubi. That's what the seals on my stomach and on the other parts of my body do. They work to keep the Kyuubi in. But recently, they've also channeled the Kyuubi's chakra into my own, giving me a lot more chakra than the average nin.

It hides. . . Pain.

I know only a few people who understand my pain, but each have only suffered a part of it.

Iruka-sensei. Grew up without parents, thanks to the demon inside me. He knows what it's like, to go home to an empty house, when almost everyone else returns to a warm family.

Sasuke probably knows a bit about this too. At least he's experienced having a family. I don't know EXACTLY what he's gone through, but I think I might have some idea of how it feels.

Haku. I knew that he understood only when he told me his story. To be alone, shunned by others, no, everyone around me. To have someone precious that you want to protect. Someone like Iruka-sensei. He knew.

Gaara probably knows how that feels too, to be hated (secretly, I might add) and feared by everyone. To have someone precious as well, but to be betrayed by that someone. . . . I know little about betrayal. He too knows the pain of having a demon inside the body you live in, but he has a brother, and a sister, to confide in. I was blessed with close friends too, but he on the other hand, always had them, but he never realized that they were there for that purpose.

But, as I discovered, no one in the world completely and truly understands how it is to be you when all of their life they have experienced being only one person, themselves. They might know what it is like to assume a role, a job, a position. To be in a kind of situation. But to be me in that situation, with different people playing the roles, no.

Every day, when I get home, I look back at today's events and fell happy for myself. For a few hours or so a day, I manage, with the help of the people in my life, to forget the pain that eats away at me from the inside. I manage to smile with all my heart and soul. I become the person I really am. It's like the mask disappears, because part of me IS the mask. My happiness. Who people think I am. What most people remember when they hear the name of Uzumaki Naruto, my name.

Lying in my bed at the end of the day is when the mask dissipates, when I am truly by myself.

By myself. In the end, we are all just ourselves. One person in a world of billions. Insignificant at first glance, yet completely important from another. I'm a hero, a villain, a bother, a blessing, an angel, a demon, a friend, an enemy. So many perspectives, each one that I find hard to contemplate. At the end, who you are matters only to yourself. For me, anyway.

I think, what if things were different? What if I DIDN'T get the Kyuubi? What if I were just a normal person, with a normal family and a normal life? What if I had a brother or sister, parents, relatives? What if I hadn't become a ninja? What if. . . . .?

I wouldn't be me if everything that had happened before DIDN'T happen.

I laugh at myself sometimes for this, because I sound so much like Neji. Sometimes, Destiny really IS in control.

My mask covers my heart, keeping it from more pain. And yet sometimes, it can do nothing to prevent pain from happening.

Emptiness. Has anyone ever felt it? Or is it just me? It can't be just me, I know that someone besides me must know how it feels. Gaara. He's felt it.

The place where my heart is feels empty, and it hurts.

It can happen at any time of day, but it usually happens at night, before I close my eyes to sleep. When it does, I instinctively place my hand to my chest, grasping my pajamas at the place where it hurts. I used to cry at night when I felt it, because I felt like there should have been someone to embrace me, to ease the pain. No one came. No one was ever there.

Eventually, sometime before I enrolled in the Ninja Academy, I gave up on crying. There was no point in crying if I wanted to become strong. Strong people don't cry. Or so I thought.

Now I know: Even the strong, are just living, breathing, feeling, people. Everyone cries. It's perfectly okay to cry.

But I still don't. For a reason.

Even though I try my best not to, sometimes I end up with a few teardrops falling to my pillow. It's just. . .

The pain is overwhelming. I feel like something's missing. Something. Someone. A missing piece of the puzzle. A lost screw. A missing part of some machine or toy.

I feel like my heart is breaking. Or has it broken already? The pain is so familiar, yet I can never tell the difference between a broken heart or one that is breaking, or one that will break.

Before I know it, the sun is shining in my eyes, telling me to get out of bed and stop feeling sorry for myself.

I pick up the pieces, put on my mask, and walk out of my apartment, into today.

People say that they're lonely because no one loves them. I think it's the other way around. People are lonely because there's no one for them to love.

No one.

Someday, I'll have someone to love. I won't feel so lonely anymore. I won't go to sleep with just myself, a blanket, and a pillow. I won't wake up to just the sun, my home, and my stuff. That's what I tell myself sometimes. Just to keep myself going. That's why I fight on, why I haven't killed myself yet.

It's like waiting. I work hard for what I want to happen, knowing that it will come, just not when.

I've waited a long time. . .

Will it ever come?

The day when I'll return home to a strong embrace, a caring smile, a warm heart?

I'll never know, unless I continue walking on life's path.

I laugh to myself again. Kakashi. he keeps straying from the path of life, or so he says.

Until then. . .

I'll wear my mask, like Kakashi-sensei does.

My heart will break, but I will pick up the pieces and walk on, no matter how much it hurts.

No matter how many times it happens, I have to keep on looking forward. . . .

_Owari_


End file.
